Jonathan
was sitting in his empty, cold room, trying to concentrate on an
essay for his English class. The subject was Shakespeare’s
sonnets, and the teacher had given him the 18th to
analyse. Like he didn’t have enough of strange feelings already…
What did really happen in the showers yesterday? Who could come
up with something like that? Kissing him, and then just leave
the shoes… Jonathan touched his cheek. It was still soar from
the slap he got in the corridor from Sarah. Culd it really have
been her shoes? He doubted it. By their size, the shoes couldn’t
belong to a girl. She claimed she liked to wiggle her toes,
but... thats kinda unlikely. But who was it then?

No, not
now… He had to concentrate on the essay. Thinking is equal to
feelings, and feelings are painful.

Forget and
move on.

He sighed
and read the words in the shabby book.

Shall I
compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art
more lovely and more temperate

Rough winds
do shake the darling buds of May,

And
summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime
too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often
is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every
fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance
or nature's changing course untrimmed

Who had it
been? Jonathan looked outside the window. The kiss… Did he like
it or not? He didn’t know. In one way, it almost felt nice. The
feeling of another human being so close to his own body was
something he couldn’t recall any memories of. It had felt…
Weird.

If he only
knew who it was, it would be easier to decide whether to like it
nor not.

He closed
his eyes and tried to remember how the soft lips had met his.

Damn it!
Why did the sonnets have to be about love? How would he be able
to analyse something he’d never felt?

He closed
the book and threw it on the bed. Who cared really? Why bother
to do an essay for school? Why care about anything?

No one
would notice if he didn’t show up in school… Well, Trevor would
have to find someone else to do his homework. But no one would
care about him. Why would they? He was nobody. He had
heard it when he was just a kid… And all his life people had
told him so. Why deny it? If everyone says one thing, it’s got
to be true.

His sad
blue eyes were filled with tears. Angrily he swept the tears
away with his bandaged wrist. The cuts from last night still
stung a bit when he touched them. It felt good. Pain was
something he knew and understood. It felt safe.

He hid his
face in his hands. What had happened to him? Most of the time he
could just shut his feelings down, but this night it seemed
impossible. He had to get his mind on something else.

Shakespeare? No, not tonight. The essay didn’t have to be
finished until next week. If he’d still be here next week… He
looked outside the window again, but his eyes were empty. He
focused on the light on the other side of the street. A couple
of moths were flying around it, hypnotised by the light. How
easy their lives must be. Sleep and eat. Avoid birds. That’s it.
Just spread the wings and fly. No feelings, no worries. No pain.

Spread your
wings and fly away, far away… Like in that song his neighbours
used to play on high volume. Usually he didn’t listen to that
kind of music, with lyrics. He preferred classical music. Piano,
violins… But that song… It was something special with it… It
almost felt like it was written about – him. He didn’t know what
to think of it. When he heard it he didn’t feel so lonely, there
must be more people like him. But it also made him think. Being
lonely was much better than thinking of it. Just accept that’s
the way things are. How long could anyone stand to be alone? In
some ways it felt like the only right thing. No one could hurt
him, because no one knew him. Put on his mask every day, not
showing any feelings. Feelings are a sign of weakness, and might
be used against him. It had been done before, and it might be
done again. Why risk anything?

He was just
the quiet, weird guy in school. At work he was “The
computer-guy”. Why let any one know more than that? Who would be
interested in knowing more about him? Jonathan sighed and shook
his head. He knew he was a nobody. He liked it that way. But
still. Sometimes it would be nice to talk to someone. Not
getting anyone to know him, just talk. No, not talk either.
Just… Have someone to turn to. Without talking, without sharing.

All these
thoughts! He had to get them out of his head, Jonathan thought.
And there’s just one way to do it. To stop think is impossible;
he needed something else to focus on. Something familiar that
always worked.

Slowly he
started to unwrap the bandages on his left arm. At first it was
easy, he had done this so many times. But the last piece of it
was soaked in dried blood since last night and wouldn’t come off
the arm so easy. Jonathan went to the bathroom to wet them. He
knew it would be easier to get the bandages off if he used
water. He didn’t want to cause old cuts to break and make the
arm numb. He desperately needed the pain, not just the
satisfaction of seeing the red blood drip from his arm down on
the floor, leaving red spots. Some nights that would do it, but
not tonight pain was the only thing that could help him relax.

The water
made the stiff fabric soften and loose its grasp of the crusts.
The cuts had barley healed yet. They were all red and swollen.
Jonathan looked at his own arm like it was a dead thing. He
touched it and twitched when he felt the warm stinging ache.
Some nights the sight of it filled him with disgust. Filled with
fresh cuts, and scar from older ones it didn’t look at all like
his classmates’ arms, but more like the arm of a freak. But that
was what I am, so the arm should fit me perfectly, Jonathan
thought and turned his face away from the reflection in the
mirror.

He had done
this for such a long time now. The first time was when he still
lived in England with his adoptive parents. If they hated him
more than he hated them was impossible to tell. They seemed to
do anything to make his already miserable life a living
nightmare. That night, four years ago, he had been crying as he
put the razorblade to his wrist and made the first cut. His
intentions had been to end it all that time, but his parents had
interrupted him. They called him a weak coward, not worth all
their time and care. Was this the proper way to thank them, they
had screamed, as they took the razorblade from his shaking hand
and locked the door from the outside. Jonathan was left like
that for several days. At dinnertime his guardians let him out,
and he was expected to sit by the dinner table and politely
answer their questions. But otherwise he spent his days locked
up in his room. His parents made sure he had no access to any
sharp objects at home, but that didn’t matter. When he got back
to school, he stole a scalpel from a classroom. Jonathan had
discovered the relieving feeling of cutting his wrist, and from
that day, he kept doing it to himself whenever he felt the cruel
reality was getting too close. The pain from the cuts eased the
pain inside. He didn’t think of it as much.

In the
beginning, a voice in his head had screamed whenever he took out
the scalpel and watched its sharp edge. But the relieving
sensation he felt when the cut was bleeding was more powerful.
The stinging pain and the sound of quiet dripping against the
floor was calming. To watch the warm, red blood soak the
bandages he put on the fresh cuts, feel the ache when he wrapped
them tight round his arms was a feeling of being safe. The pain
he could control. He could evoke it whenever he pleased.

Jonathan
opened the bathroom cabinet and found the razorblade where he’d
left it. He had cleaned it careful last night. He always did. He
held the knife in his hand and felt the calm spread already. He
knew what to come. The cold, sharp blade easy made a clean cut
in the flesh. With his blue eyes fixed on the blood slowly
making a small runnel, Jonathan lifted the razorblade again. The
blood felt warm against his cold skin. The first drop hit the
floor, followed by several more. A pulsing ache grew in the arm.
One more cut… And another one. The dripping sound almost became
an irregular, thin flow. Carefully Jonathan sat down in the
floor. He dropped the razorblade on the floor and let his left
arm hang down his side and rested the hand on the floor. Soon
the blood had made a small puddle around his knuckles.

Jonathan
fixed his eyes on a spot on the wall opposite to him, leaned his
head against the towels hanging from a hook behind him. He felt
free. It was like all his tough thoughts left his body along
with the blood. The thoughts were gone. Now it was just him
and the bleeding, aching arm left. That’s the way he liked it.

The puddle
on the floor grew wider, and Jonathan realised he had to stop
the bleeding before he would become dizzy. He took role of clean
bandage from the shelf next to him and tied it hard around his
arm. He felt the pulse even more distinct now. Every heartbeat
gave a new strike of the dull pain he had grown to trust. The
pain was his friend. He could always rely in pain.

Maybe it
would be easier to fall asleep now. It was always easier to
relax after he had cut his wrists open. If it was the familiar
pulse in his arms that made him relax, or the sensation of all
bad thoughts going away with the blood he didn’t know. Maybe it
was the combination. It just felt good and that’s all Jonathan
needed to know. He never felt as good as when he had done this.
Light, relaxed. Almost a bit euphoric when he came to think of
it.

Carefully
he got off the floor, took the razorblade and held it under the
tap to wash the blood away. Then he dropped it in the garbage
bag. Next time he would take a new one.

Maybe he
had let the cuts bleed a little too long this time. He felt
dizzy and nausea and had to sit down on the toilet seat. The
room was spinning around him. Had he gone up from the floor to
fast? This wasn’t the first time he felt like this. If he just
got to the bed and could lay down for a while. Then he’d clean
up the mess on the floor.

Jonathan
got up again, and leaned against the wall as the dizziness
increased. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a
moment. He needed to stay focused to make it to the bed. It was
just about ten feet away, he would make it easily he tried to
convince himself. He took a few steps, loosed his firm grip
around the doorframe and slowly stepped towards the bed. Just
two more steps, then he could lie down. Just two more… But
suddenly everything turned black and the floor disappeared into
thin air. Jonathan fell to the floor, but he didn’t notice that.
He had already passed out.

An hour
later Jonathan woke up. Slowly he became awere of where he was
and what had happened. There was a sound from his upstairs
neighbour that made him open his eyes a familiar sound. The song
again. Sung by a man. He almost sounded British. Jonathan hadn’t
thought of that before.

Since
he was small

Had no
luck at all

Nothing
came easy to him

Now it
was time

He'd
made up his mind

"This
could be my last chance"

How close
it had been this evening. He had been dizzy before, felt the
room spinning around him, but he had never passed out. Not from
bleeding, anyway.

Slowly he
crawled over to the bed and climbed into it. He was lying on his
side with the knees under his chin. The arms curled up around
the legs. He was still exhausted from being passed out. How
strange lying on the floor, unconscious, could make anyone this
tired.

Jonathan
closed his eyes, felt the comforting pulse in his left arm and
fell asleep as the last refrain was heard from upstairs.